Dylan Cease gives bullpen a rest as Padres rout Dodgers, even series

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jun 11, 2025

Published in Baseball

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This was bigger than just a victory over the Dodgers.

The opponent was largely immaterial for what was important in this game in the middle of June.

Yes, beating the Dodgers 11-1 at packed Petco Park on Tuesday meant the Padres moved to within a game of first place in the National League West.

But how they won is what could help them remain in the division race over the course of the 96 games that remain in the regular season and on into October.

They won by a comfortable margin, and their starting pitcher went deep in the game.

The latter had happened only occasionally of late. The former had not happened in nearly a month.

Dylan Cease earned his first win since his second start of the season, on April 2, by allowing three hits over seven innings.

It was just the third time a Padres starter completed six innings in the past 13 games.

And it was just the third time in 18 games since May 14 — and first time in 11 victories — that the final margin was more than two runs.

“Never a bad time,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “But very timely.”

The primary benefit was that a weary bullpen was able to rest. Rookie David Morgan, who allowed a run in the eighth inning, was the only reliever to work.

In keeping pace with the Giants (39-28) and moving closer to the Dodgers (40-28), the Padres (38-28) scored three runs in the third inning, one apiece in the fourth and fifth, four in the sixth and two in the seventh.

Cease (2-5, 4.28) moved past a bout of wildness midgame to go longer than five innings for the first time in four starts.

He struck out a season-high 11 batters in his first scoreless outing of the season.

The Dodgers employed an opener, Lou Trivino, who escaped trouble in the first inning before being replaced by Matt Sauer in the second.

The Dodgers used the game to rest their bullpen, as well, letting Sauer throw 111 pitches as he worked into the sixth inning before giving way to a position player.

As soon as Xander Bogaerts’ single drove in two runs to put the Padres up 9-0 — passing the threshold of eight runs required for the trailing team to use a position player on the mound — Dodgers manager Dave Roberts replaced Sauer with Enrique Hernandez.

The outfielder worked the final 2⅓ innings, throwing pitches that ran between 43 and 57 mph, while wearing a helmet.

Sauer began his night with a scoreless second inning and got the first two outs of the third before Fernando Tatis Jr. drew a walk and scored on Luis Arraez’s double down the right field line.

Machado followed with the first of his five RBIs, a single that scored Arraez. Jackson Merrill’s triple down the right field line brought Machado around.

Singles by Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth and Tyler Wade being hit by a pitch loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth. The Padres’ lone run in the inning would score on a double play grounder by Maldonado.

Arraez led off the fifth with a double and scored on Machado’s single. But after Merrill singled and Gavin Sheets walked, three straight outs ended that inning.

Maldonado began the Padres’ half of the sixth by lining Sauer’s first pitch into the seats beyond left field.

Singles by Tatis and Arraez followed, and Tatis scored on Machado’s groundout. Merrill walked, and both runners advanced on a wild pitch during Sheets’ strikeout. And both scored on Bogaerts’ single.

The Padres added two runs against Hernandez in the seventh.

Cease, whose 4.72 ERA coming into the game was fifth worst among all qualified starting pitchers in the NL, worked around a two-out walk in the fourth inning and a one-out single by Ohtani and two-out single by Freeman in the fifth.

He was at 76 pitches after five innings and took just 10 more to finish the sixth. He began the seventh by issuing his fifth walk, this one to Tommy Edman, before retiring the next three batters.

Walks were the only detriment, perhaps, to Cease not going even further in the game.

He had retired seven of the first eight batters he faced when, with one out in the third inning, he started spraying his two primary pitches.

He walked No.9 batter Dalton Rushing on four pitches before Shohei Ohtani grounded into a fielder’s choice on a slider at the bottom of the zone.

Cease then threw just one strike while walking Mookie Betts and Freeman to load the bases. In that sequence of three walks and an out, two pitches in the zone and another two anywhere near it.